[1007b]
[1]
so the predication must proceed to
infinity. But this is impossible, for not even more than two accidents
can be combined in predication. An accident cannot be an accident of
an accident unless both are accidents of the same thing.I mean, e.g., that "white" is
"cultured" and "cultured" "white" merely because both are accidents of
a man. But it is not in this sense—that both terms are
accidents of something else—that
Socrates is cultured. Therefore
since some accidents are predicated in the latter and some in the
former sense, such as are predicated in the way that "white" is of
Socrates cannot be an
infinite series in the upper direction; e.g. there cannot be another
accident of "white Socrates,"
for the sum of these predications does not make a single
statement.Nor can
"white " have a further accident, such as "cultured"; for the former
is no more an accident of the latter than vice versa; and besides we
have distinguished that although some predicates are accidental in
this sense, others are accidental in the sense that "cultured" is to
Socrates; and whereas
in the former case the accident is an accident of an accident, it is
not so in the latter; and thus not all predications will be of
accidents.Therefore
even so there will be something which denotes substance. And if this
is so, we have proved that contradictory statements cannot be
predicated at the same time.Again, if
all contradictory predications of the same subject at the same time
are true, clearly all things will be one.
[20]
For if
it is equally possible either to affirm or deny anything of anything,
the same thing will be a trireme and a wall and a man; which is what
necessarily follows for those who hold the theory of Protagoras.1 For if anyone thinks that a man is not
a trireme, he is clearly not a trireme; and so he also is a trireme if
the contradictory statement is true.And the result is the dictum of Anaxagoras,
"all things mixed together"2; so that nothing truly exists. It seems, then, that they are
speaking of the Indeterminate; and while they think that they are
speaking of what exists, they are really speaking of what does not;
for the Indeterminate is that which exists potentially but not
actually.But indeed
they must admit the affirmation or negation of any predicate of any
subject, for it is absurd that in the case of each term its own
negation should be true, and the negation of some other term which is
not true of it should not be true. I mean, e.g., that if it is true to
say that a man is not a man, it is obviously also true to say that he
is or is not a trireme.Then if the affirmation is true, so must the negation be true; but
if the affirmation is not true the negation will be even truer than
the negation of the original term itself.
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